


INSURGENCY

by CorellianSea



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, Han addresses their distance, Han's reaction to Vader being Luke's father, M/M, Post RotJ, Romance, freeform style, instafic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 02:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7415947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorellianSea/pseuds/CorellianSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span class="small">In his eyes, Han had seen a flame burning hot as a day-star, an immortal sun perpetually going nova, not yet having witnessed the casualties of a life after turning over to the ways of the Jedi, where the blaze would then wither and be dimmed down by cynically harsh truths and solid bottom lines. Leaving nothing but a vacant shell, something else wearing Luke's face when the boy — man, stood before him and exhibited the very image Han wasn't so positive he detested or adored any longer. </span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	INSURGENCY

**Author's Note:**

  * For [culturevulture73](https://archiveofourown.org/users/culturevulture73/gifts), [lukeskyliquor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukeskyliquor/gifts).



 

“Han, please— _please_ wait, you don’t understand.“

Han stopped his brisk pace and whipped around to face Luke, fury flashing in his eyes for a split second before it cast itself on his face in the form of a severe contortion, lips twisting down in an open mouth frown, eyebrows knit up, and incredulity had paired well with the blatant anguish in those burnished hazel orbs.

"No, Luke," Han punctuated the use of Luke's name, the weight of it almost came off as an insult, "You— _You_ don't understand. I could've stuck by you, I could've, but you— _you_ —"

Han growled out something that would have qualified as a bark made from Chewie when upset. It didn't alleviate the pressure bound inside and as a result, he reiterated; this time, it was turbulent, coupled with a kick to a stray supply box. The crate slid back, slamming into uniformly stacked rows along with a rather colorful variety of Corellian curses from Han. A few containers tumbled down, the sharp crashing of metal against metal fell upon deaf ears.

"Han—" Luke attempted again, not even halfway through Han's name before the older man intervened, right arm thrown up to punctuate his accusatory inquiries, "Did you not think? Did you not think about what it all could have meant in the end? What it could have meant to _me_?"

His gloved hand worked through a tangled mop of blonde hair, at a loss. There had been too many words that'd gone silenced, too many events had transpired following Endor, so many things Luke only wished he could've been able to have just _one_ opportunity to say. "Of course, I did. It's all I could think about. You don't understand, Han, at the time, I thought it wouldn't even matter in the end..."

It was the wrong thing to say, Luke realized when Han blazed once more, hands clamping over the sides of his hips. "Not matter? Well, I'll be damned Luke, I wonder why."

Han suddenly delayed, a torrent of words ensnared his mouth, circling like a typhoon and no way to escape without destroying in the end; and so he squeezed his eyes shut for a short lapse of time to quiet the frightening whirlwind of perturbation in his head.

"I should have goddamn known, you know, with how you don't talk to me at all anymore. Like we're not even friends anymore. Ever since Endor — no wait, since the carbon freeze — _goddammit_ Luke!" Han instantly exploded once more, "Don't give me that fucking blasted look of yours, I'm sick of it!"

Luke made an unidentifiable pitch in his throat, caught between bracing himself or throwing himself into Han's arms; to soothe him, press him close and tell Han that he was sorry, and that he'd never intended on being the source of the tribulation overwhelming his closest friend. But here he was — doing what he seemed to do best as he secured his trembling hands into tight fists, steeling himself anyway since Luke identified that if he didn't, Han would assume the exposed countenance he'd bore would figure in as an attack in itself.

Han picked up where he left off, overlooking swelling fury after seeing Luke resort to composing himself in a Jedi like fashion, elaborating ever more as Han placed that Luke needed him to. "I don't know why I didn't expect it 'cause my lucks' been runnin' dry since I met you two. Brother 'n sister, who would've thought?" Scoffing, "Why didn't you just tell me?"

But Han did know about it; Leia had told him on Endor. He knew of their blood relation, remained ever patient of the unvarnished truths, kept waiting and waiting for the day Luke would divulge on the matter himself. Kept on waiting until time ran out, till an outcome like this played itself out, then, _then_ he was granted probity.

What a load of utter shit.

"I wanted to, you have no idea how much I wanted to..."

Luke tested the waters, inching toward his long time friend, but Han stepped back just as fast, the distance separating them did not progress nor contract; it was as if their mere propinquity objected to each other like the poles of a magnet. Luke bit down on the sorrow clawing its way up his throat, "but it wasn't just my choice on the matter. Leia is a part of this too, she deserved to have her own choice — if it included me in the package, then what else could I have done differently? Her choice was just as important as mine. We were — we _are_ _still_ together in this."

Luke caught the scornful expression Han had promptly swayed to the side, away from Luke's attentive scrutiny, and Luke grimaced in spite of the fact something inside told him that Han understood the justification, yet indignation had managed to make itself known anyway.

"I thought we were..." Though staunch at first, Han trailed off, his baritone hardly above a whisper, his gaze remaining flanked to the right. "I thought we were fixing the distance now. I thought we had everything in order _,_ y'know?" Han shifted the weight on his feet, one knee bending awkwardly as tension bled from his shoulders, dazed and at a loss.

"And we _are_ fixing it," another brisk step forward, Han his destination; alas, too alert, and too soon. His target took one more instinctive step back and Luke admonished patience inwardly, chiding himself until the compulsion to persist onward dissolved. "Everything is still the same, Han, nothing has changed in my eyes. I still feel the same for you, everything remains as it was before."

"Is _that_ what it is then?" Han reared his head up then. Asperity, irrationally superseded by cynical melancholy bridged cerulean orbs, so dimmed and crestfallen, "You think I would be unchanged when you told everyone? That I’d still follow you ‘round anyway after I’d found out 'cause it's all I ever did? Time and time again, I put my neck on the line for you — even after all these years. 'Er what? Is it down to knowin' me for a year or less now instead of the _five_ that it _should_ be? The five that at least _I_ remember having with you! — oh, ‘n as a stranger to boot 'cause the years before you pulled me out of the freeze — s'like they never happened!"

Luke froze up, mind blanking at the impetuous emotion Han lay bare, something he wasn't used to seeing without some sort of mocking quip or parry to counter the overt display of emotion. Culpability ballooned in response and his chest began to hammer, his heart arduously somber, heavier than he ever conceived plausible. He'd known this was an actuality they could have had the chance of coming to challenge. Except, Luke never foresaw this of all things; Han losing control the way he had, composure Han once ensured to try in reserving had completely propelled itself into nihility.

And so, Luke allowed no such repercussions, nothing to connote that Han's confession had made any sort of impact, and it was then Han realized his exposal had been entirely for naught.

By now a scream had clambered up Han's throat, gagging him, expanding and extending outward, effectively diffusing to cramp and obstruct narrowing airways. A coagulation Han struggled in holding back, clearly choking on the asphyxiating vexation, and it resulted in a sharp, short and stifled wail, burn of exertion fizzling in the back of his throat after.

A fidget, reward for his hopeless outcry — not enough, Han wanted _more. W_ hatever it was Luke incessantly bridled abaft mentally erected reticent blockades. Han desired the knowledge with a fierce hankering as grief passed him in punishing waves. The tides surged in to drown him, enfolding his consciousness in a foggy lock where nebulous senses of disorientation came unzipped, up till the tides began to recede, and vast, all-consuming rolls were evaporated — left nothing but an oppressive heat to recondition lands; inadvertently, Han burned himself alive with his own affliction, calcining, an incineration of heart and soul, thorough and utterly devastating.

Luke surged forward and grabbed his arm, only he was thrown off instantly. They stood their ground, Han boiling over while Luke scrambled to find the words to piece together what he desperately wanted to say. "We can talk about this, can't we?" it came off as an imploring statement, but his patience ebbed ever faster when Han simply dismissed him, inclined to fly again. Luke strode ahead to outmaneuver Han.

It worked for a period of time before Han sidestepped Luke and the younger countered by doing the same, steps synchronized in a frustrating dance within the corridor until Han grit his teeth and ground out, " _Move_."

Han challenged insurgency with an even greater semblance of animosity than before, emboldened by an inherent affray that crushed any passing of better judgment altogether. Even though he distantly appreciated Luke's passionate disposition, his compassion, and overall benevolence, Han failed to abstain the betrayal avidly engulfing him with every exhale; and it strangled him, asphyxiated him until sentiments of beguilement was all that was left to behold in the vestiges.

Luke's every bit of effort impelled raw revelation to embed itself deeper into his soul and it proved in being disastrous. Despairingly hunting for some form of circumvention, Han rose up close, nose to nose with the man he had recklessly jeopardized his life for again and again; in all likelihood, Han would do it yet another time, in just a single beat even if it just barely entailed Luke's survival.

Unforeseen dissidence sprouted from a hidden origin, and Han muzzled his ornery sneer to Luke, "Step _aside_."

"So you can do what?" Luke riposted quickly. Underneath trenching brows, sky blue fires echoed a withering tenderness in risk of being eclipsed by something Han sidelined in being able to decipher.

If there was but one thing Han could understand from Luke, and as absurd as it was — it was _glass_.

Luke reminded Han of glass; the very kind he had seen traditionally blown in the markets by the beaches on Corellia when he was a boy. When he'd watched in rapt fascination at how something like sand — found virtually anywhere on his home planet covered in oceans — could be melted down and forged into something as beautiful and as delicate as the sculptures he'd seen in midday sun. Sunlight had passed through the elaborate, vivid patterns splayed over worn sandy walkways as townspeople and tourists alike marveled at a rare form of art. Each piece unique in itself, no design the same, no final result could be precisely duplicated.

Subliminal, far off shouts of merchants whisked him into a besieging phantasm, and all at once, Han's frame of reference was that of an adolescent's, peering up to the open displays of finished works set out for purchasing. Childlike awe returned tenfold as the belief that the mental projection held genuine authenticity rather than being the illusion it absolutely was.

 _So beautiful_ , Han thought, bitter regret pooling all over as he summoned up cast off imageries, contrasting them to Luke, and staggering at the comparisons not a second later.

Luke was glass — not transparasteel — Luke was _glass_ ; he resembled it too, at least, from Han's own mental standpoint.

Proficient and industrious, cemented in its formation, adapted to withstand pressures and surrounding adversities, in some such way capable of reflecting even the smallest fragments of light in the darkest of places, in the exceedingly morose of times.

On the other hand, wherever there was too much stress involved at once— if it were too fast, too sudden, too much to bear without the least possible delay, it would sequentially lead to a fracture, a fissure to suddenly open up and rupture the once flawless design.

Han quelled manifesting contrition, watching Luke's expression bore that same vulnerable grimace, and now he longed to stomp out the remaining blaze in his heart so he could enfold Luke in his sanctuary, preserve the kid from additional misery, safeguard him against the realities of life.

Luke had once been an undamaged, completely unique configuration of pristine innocence, the galaxy still at his fingertips. The universe had remained unjudged, senses of wonder retaining its position prior to the adventurous spirit confined within him eventually getting the better of any rational decision.

 _And naive,_ Han remembered observing him on Tatooine, starry-eyed and eager as hell. The kid sat next to old man Kenobi with an attitude that would've earned the boy a couple cuffs upside the head by his eldest sister.

Because Luke had spirit then, so much of it.

In his eyes, Han had seen a flame burning hot as a day-star, an immortal sun perpetually going nova, not yet having witnessed the casualties of a life after turning over to the ways of the Jedi, where the blaze would then wither and be dimmed down by cynically harsh truths and solid bottom lines. Leaving nothing but a vacant shell, something else wearing Luke's face when the boy — _man_ , stood before him and exhibited the very image Han wasn't so positive he detested or adored any longer. That clueless moisture farmboy — withdrawn entirely to be superseded with a man Han disputed ever knowing in the past. He couldn't determine if the kid he'd met on Tatooine was truly the same man who engineered his extrication from Jabba —

Luke's destiny: a prolonged brand of torture, worse than any physical pain. It proved in being a very distinct type of mental agony, a class in which one would be torn to pieces by uncompromising, seemingly interminable circumstances that sooner or later required Luke to put to rights as a whole — something that didn't seem like Luke could even offer to himself any longer. 

Not since Endor, not since _Vader_.

The boy had suffered more than enough when Han first set his sights on him in Mos Eisley, underwent all the more trials before he'd transformed into the man standing in front of him. Still, Han understood he continued to suffer wordlessly. All but at the end of his rope, bit by bit, Luke was dying in a thick, self-made, impermeable bout of silence.

And so, Han analyzed in gradual rising horror as Luke lost himself in pieces—

Luke let out a quivering exhalation without warning, sound strident in Han's ears. Luke, in no doubt, intended on being discreet, yet Han suffered the full brunt of an action one would've ordinarily deemed as insignificant, for he recognized the act had been nothing close to trivial and never would be. Not after coming to terms that Luke wasn't the same Luke any longer. It was the closest he'd gotten to a solid emotional reaction, something that wasn't ducked behind a damned shield.

Gods, that shield.

He was once warm and inviting, his impudent grin sent balmy ripples that seeped through the very layers of his clothing on Hoth. The fates had Luke's sabacc cards stacked up in his favor, Han had been so sure of it. Smitten by the end of the season, Han stalled on the debt he owed Jabba for no other reason than the fact that he _chose_ to. Nonetheless, Han had never asked for his heart to be seized the way it had when terror dug its talons into his gut, realizing Luke hadn't rebounded from his round of scouting and they were already shutting down the hatches, search party nonexistent—

"I ain't gonna ask again," words tumbled out before he could reel them back in, Luke's query disregarded, "don't make me ask again."

Fleetingly, Han wondered how much he could foul up with Luke before twilight arrived, though in private, Han understood most of his enmity derived from the mental blow of weighty consternation. The events had appalled him, horrified him, and the underlying impression of deception generated in distinction to Luke not having told him first. It wouldn't have mattered when, Han concluded that he wouldn't have deplored the slightest if Luke burst into his cabin in the middle of the night, frantically hollering about it. 

Fantasy appealed more to Han than his reality.

Thin lips compressed tightly, contemplating as the customary mask donned and glaciated like Han had conscientiously observed in times past. 

Oh, but those eyes — and how they betrayed him.

Luke, always so unaware of how much he could give away under a keen, able analysis such as Han's.

Abaft the guise of imperturbable amenability lay a fermented disquiet, left stranded throughout time, and atrophy naturally betided in the dull, blue-gray gaze — reflecting despondency and such desolation. Gods, how Han initially fought the sheer desideration to chase away those shadows in Luke's eyes.

Han suddenly began to resent his response, for affixing weight to the trouble Luke already struggled in facing, already having been emancipated of so many things he deserved a hundred lifetimes over.

Destitute of acceptance, harmony — _love_.

 

_I'll stand next to you, Luke — don't go at it alone._

 

"Take the 'Falcon and fly off somewhere — never to be seen again? So you can leave Leia and I alone now that you know Vader was our father?"

There it was. Directed toward Han for the first time since seeing the holo newscast of the public announcement, and Luke braced himself for the explosive reaction Han must have readied for him, unable to read those hazel eyes in the notable lapse of silence.

Sober in every aspect, Han's return snagged Luke unawares, and for the first time, Luke feared that Han was resolute in belatedly retiring them for good.

"Stop bringing Leia into this. She ain't got nothin' to do with this right now."

Luke fell short to evading his swamping bewilderment, "She has everything to do with this. How do you think Leia feels right now? She's being hounded alone by the senate and there's probably a million questions being launched at her too. I'm sure she would want to be here — and I _should_ be at her side still, but I'm ..."

"Go then — _go_! I _want_ you to go. Go to your sister, let Leia be supported by you. If you think I need this talk then you got another thing comin', Luke. I'm still leaving."

"Then what can I do to get you to stay?" Luke's hand went up to rest on Han's forearm, inflexibly grappling to the fabric of his blazer, as if he were to yield in the slightest, then Han would automatically fade from his existence.

Han dropped his chin and inspected Luke's attempt in placating him. Han's eyelids gradually slid to a close as he breathed in quietly, contemplating. He brought a hand up to settle over Luke's and squeezed once, firm and supplied with all the love he still held for the younger man, then pried the appendage off him.

 

"Nothing."

 

With that, Han strode past him, gait austere in consequence to the effort of dampening the vociferous splintering of his heart.

 

_I would've followed you, kid._

 

"Would it make any difference if I told you that I would follow you anywhere _you_ would want to go?"

Just a mere two steps ahead of Luke before he was being seized by the ambiguous query. Han steadied himself, hopeful prospects taking the better of him like it always did.

"Would it make any difference that if our roles somehow reversed, I'd follow you just because of the fact that I knew it would be _you_?" Luke reaffirmed as he turned around, a newfangled fortitude had entrenched blazing tenacity and Han swore he could feel the intensity bore against his back,

All at once, Luke was no longer at his heels, instead, he pressed up against him, arms going to coil around his middle in a despondent effort to keep Han docked, to prevent him in taking flight one more time. 

Against his former conviction, Han yielded, swiftly placated and longing for more from just a single embrace — with the exception of the touch to burn brighter than that of a friend's. Although, Han doubted he ever wanted to escape from Luke's hold, doubted he could ever force himself when Luke was so close to him like this. 

Han hunted for the right response throughout the time Luke fumbled in trying to disentangle himself from the dither he inadvertently slid straight into. He couldn't, so, Han waited on pins and needles with every second that ticked by.

"I'm sorry, Han."

Han felt a weight settle between his shoulder blades, an intimate heat the spacer would have perhaps at one time believed familiar. Underneath shut eyelids further wrinkled down by slanted eyebrows, Han envisioned glowing, torrid trickles seeping through the layers of his jacket and well past his loose shirt. Recollections of Hoth rebounded from withheld recesses of his mind and there was nothing he could do but welcome the display of scuffed permacrete below his boots as the memory projected itself. His body tensed impulsively after having contrasted the color of the dusted, gray asphalt they stood upon to that of Hoth's.

Alarms trumpeted within the frosted hanger, insistently reverberating and ricocheting within icy walls that rapidly coruscated red. Sounding off a distinct portent of converging peril. And Luke, standing there with his helmet cupped to his side, a ghost of a grin abated to knotted sensibilities, implicitly aphasic for the purpose of staving off any more validation to the event it may be their last time in ever seeing each other again. Han hunched over the 'Falcon, grimacing, the fumes of cauterized wires invaded his nostrils, the pungent stench surrounding repairs for his ship simply passed as colloquial by now.

Memories bled through previously erected supports and in turn, his frame of mind reached a state of cutting alert, brought posthaste by virtue of an extreme, instinctive gut reaction to stay alive.

Brought back to his senses when Luke's nose bumped against his spine, Han furrowed his brows at how the slightest nudge from Luke ended up sending an odd flux of assuaging trembles to ride down his legs. He exhaled, abdomen locked up in a taut hold. The hollowed sensation following his thin respire felt akin to a countdown of some sort, as if they claimed that condensed juncture spent standing in the hallway as an opportunity to reassemble themselves all over again, convene what little fragments of themselves that had chipped off and set asunder the second Han opined such a finalizing denouement.

Luke touched his cheek against Han's jacket and studied the woven poly-synth centimeters away from his thick lashes, reviving an instance where he once doted on Han in private. The ex-smuggler had yet to notice his presence. A pink muscle wedged at the corner of his mouth, jaw tensed as he worked on a defective data pad, imprecations slipped on the off-chance the portable computer would glitch to life and the illuminating glow returned to the screen only to flicker off recurrently.

Luke closed his eyes then, allowing mental reveries to sweep him away prior to the hints of Corellian sandalwood breaching his nasal cavities, filling him with the heady scent of something that defined itself as utterly Han as well as the 'Falcon.

"I never meant for this to happen. I didn't know it would turn out this way. _Please_ , Han, don't go like this. I won't stop you if you feel like you need to have some time to think for yourself, I can understand that, but I don't think I can let us part ways without you knowing — ... everything."

Luke held on even when Han twisted round in his arms, perplexed and expectant of an explanation.

As if it delivered an exception to what ultimatum he held on to now. "What else don't I know?"

"Han... If you wanted me to explain everything at once, we would be standing here for days."  
  
"Sum it up. What else don't I know —"  
  


"I love you," and it was then Luke stood higher and kissed Han.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you guys enjoyed! I had this sitting for a while and decided to finish it... though it doesn't feel very finished at all. You might see a sequel to this, who knows, but there was that feeling I sometimes get whenever I'm working on a fiction that simply tells me _'okay, that's enough now.'_ I also hope the people I gifted this to had a somewhat of a good time reading this in spite of the fact that I never really talked about this particular subject to them before. I had seen culturevulture73 agree with me on a lot of things in the past on tumblr but im very shy when it comes to talking to people.    
>  I hope you enjoyed too jess you fuckin' angst queen ♥ lmao bye we already killed ourselves on Skype talking about this shit im dead   
>  this fiction has gone through some editing since the original posting :) 


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